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Bluegrass Alliance on September 23, 1975

by Monte Barry

Publication date 1975-09-23

Usage Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States

Topics Monte Barry, Bluegrass Alliance, Bill Millet, Vince Gill, Lonnie Peerce, Al White, Marshall Billingsley

Bluegrass Alliance - September 23, 1975
Great Midwestern Bluegrass Music Hall
Louisville, KY

SBD mixed and taped by Monte Barry
transferred and remastered by Monte Barry
420bikeandhike@gmail.com

released on September 8, 2008

Source:
SBD > Nakamichi 550 w/ Dolby NR > Advent Chromium Dioxide C-120 cassette tape

Lineage:
MR cassette > Nakamichi 550 > Lexicon Alpha > Samplitude 24-bit @ 48 KHz
Samplitude 7.22 > 16-bit @ 44.1 KHz

Set 1
d1t01 name this tune
d1t02 East Virginia Blues
d1t03 Don't Cry Blue
d1t04 name this instrumental
d1t05 Leaves That Are Green
d1t06 Slewfoot
d1t07 You Don't Know My Mind
d1t08 Shenandoah Beakdown
d1t09 Long Black Veil
d1t10 Sittin' on Top of the World
d1t11 500 Miles Away from Home
d1t12 Green Sleeves
d1t13 Paradise
d1t14 Foggy Mountain Breakdown

Set 2
d1t15 //Doin' My Time
d1t16 Tennessee Blues
d1t17 //Blue Moon of Kentucky
d1t18 You Ain't Goin' Nowhere//
d2t01 //name this tune
d2t02 Roll in My Sweet Baby's Arms
d2t03 Fox on the Run
d2t04 Good Woman's Love
d2t05 Sweetheart of Mine
d2t06 Take Me Back to Tulsa
d2t07 Black Mountain Rag
d2t08 Ghost Riders in the Sky
d2t09 Louise
d2t10 Amy
d2t11 //Too Lonesome to Cry
d2t12 Orange Blossom Special

Set 3
d2t13 Dark Hollow
d2t14 Panhandle Rag
d2t15 Thunderclouds of Love

bonus MP3 track - sung by Vince Gill
d2t16 Louise - by Leo Kottke - w/ Buddy Emmons on pedal steel
the Bluegrass Alliance studio session

Kentucky Blue LP
American Heritage - 1975

bit torrent for this show

Notes

Sam Bush and Tony Rice both played in the Bluegrass Alliance band in 1971

Bickel's place - Louisville, KY- Dec 14, 2008

Bill Millet, Vince Gill, Lonnie Peerce, Al White, Marshall Billingsley - 1975

Vince Gill - lead and tenor vocals, rhythm and lead guitar, dobro
Bill Millet - lead and baritone vocals, banjo, rhythm guitar
Al White - lead vocals, mandolin, rhythm guitar
Lonnie Peerce - tenor vocals, fiddle
Marshall Billingsley - bass fiddle

track changes are seamless
tracks are normalized to 100%
tape was transferred "as is" w/EQ set flat
tape was edited raw (paused) on-the-fly during taping
recorded on a single 120-minute cassette
reel-flip cut-off at end of d1t18
tape ends before end of show

Vince Gill is 18 yrs old
Bill Millet breaks banjo string in d1t14 Foggy Mtn Breakdown at 2:40
Al White does a cool Bob Dylan imitation at 1:55 into d1t18

day/date calc reveals this is a Tuesday night
- which explains why the crowd is nil in 3rd set

Released on the American Heritage record label, the Kentucky Blue LP was never remastered or re-released. Before going to Nashville to record Louise with Buddy Emmons, rehearsal recording sessions for Louise were recorded in Monte Barry's apartment - the one he shared with Vince Gill - upstairs at the grannies' place, in Louisville. Vince Gill and Bill Millet produced these sessions.

Monte used his Nakamichi 2-track cassette deck and another cassette deck to bounce back and forth for overdubs and mix-downs. Mics were set up in his living room. The entire Bluegrass Alliance band, as listed above, played Kentucky Blue tape recording demo sessions. They had a good head-start when they went to Nashville to record in the studio.

Nashville studio session players, Dec. 5 - 8, 1975:
Buddy Emmons - steel guitar (E9 tuning)
Karl Himmel - drums

Engineered by:
Sundance (former engineer for Pink Floyd) on MCI console
MCI 16 track 1" analog tape deck - mastered to 1/2" on Ampex deck

mics:
Neuman U87 - vocals / upright bass
Electrovoice RE20 - banjo
AKG condensers - guitar, mandolin, fiddle

Bluegrass Alliance - Kentucky Blue LP 1975 - 1976
executive producer: Lonnie Peerce
music arrangements and production by: Vince Gill & Bill Millet

peace,
Monte Barry

Bluegrass Alliance band - spring, 1976 - L to R:
Lonnie Peerce, Robert Pool, Thayne Bradford, Bob Briedenbach, John Jump, Bill Millet

Bluegrass Alliance band - The Cowboy Bar, Jackson Hole, WY - July, 1976 - L to R:
Lonnie Peerce, Robert Pool, John Jump, Vince Gill, Bob Briedenbach, Bill Millet

Lonnie, John, Robert, Vince, Bob, Bill — Monte Barry was the soundman

Bluegrass Alliance - lost videotapes from 1976

Monte is seeking a copy of this VideoTape - for The Internet Archive

2010-April-xx, by Monte Barry - to Mike Harpring:
We worked together at WDRB-TV in Louisville from fall 1975 to summer 1976. I was a videotape operator there. We worked for Bob Cleveland, chief engineer. I gave my 2 weeks notice there. I announced I was going to become a soundman full-time and go to work with a new band.

In 1976 at WDRB, I created and videotaped a Bluegrass music show in the Studio there. You probably helped me out on it. I brought The Bluegrass Alliance band down to the station twice for this effort. They only had one color studio camera. So we shot the "Program" with a wide-shot of the band, and they performed enough tunes for a show. It was likely 60 minutes of tape. I had the band came back again a 2nd time. We played back the master quad tape, and sent the Audio into the Studio. The band lip-synched to it and played their music again. This time we shot a series of tight shots for the vocals and during solos, and recorded the video on a 2nd quad tape.

Then I used the remote-control edit package they had installed for 2 of their 3 RCA 2-inch quadruplex video tape recorders. I did some very simple "video-only" insert-edits into the master tape. We ended up with a faked-out 2-camera shoot. This program aired on WDRB-TV in Louisville in 1976.

It's not like it never happened. For posterity sakes, this tape is obviously very valuable. I'm quite sure you did work on it.

I am looking for a copy of this tape. I called WDRB-TV (Fox) over a year ago, and discussed this with them. One guy, who claims to have been there since the late 70s, swears to me that this tape doesn't exist in their tape library or their archives. It vanished!

Monte's "taper resume"

2010-April-xx, by Mike Harpring (tech ops) - to Monte:
I remember taping the Bluegrass Alliance show very well. Steve Doss, you and I all shared the "producer" credit and we taped it over two Sunday nights. We used the Peavey audio board and some mics that I borrowed from my friend who owned Far-Out Music in New Albany. On the first pass, we shot the close-ups. Then we set the camera up on a wide shot and played the tape back for the second pass. We faded between the tape and the camera's live-shot on our Grass Valley video switcher.

WAKY disc jockey Tom Dooley was the host of the show. He had really long, full curly hair and a beard. The second week he showed up with short hair. So we had to do the intro at the top, and some ins and outs, a second time. We didn't set up the questions for the interview ahead of time. Every time he asked one of the players a question about the band, they referred him to Lonnie. The songs were recorded on individual 2" tapes. Then I guess that's when you edited them into one long piece. I seem to remember seeing some of the tapes later, but I think I might have given them to Steve. I never saw the "show tape" that eventually aired. It's too bad they didn't save that. The show could have easily run again. They probably recorded over it, since a 1-hour reel cost about $200 back then. I've been at WHAS-TV in Louisville for 26 years doing audio for the news.

my lost 1985 Video Tape Recordings TAPED for the entire Telluride Bluegrass Festival

Tony Rice, Curtis Burch, Dan Crary, J.D. Crowe, John Cowan, Sam Bush - at Bickel's place - Dec 14, 2008

Identifier ba75-09-23.sbd.flac

Taped by Monte Barry

Year 1975

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Reviews

Reviewer: markscarts - - May 15, 2015
Subject: Track 19 Named

Wow, so glad to find this archive. I play with one of the guys fairly regularly now, Marshall Billingsley. Thanks for sharing this live performance! The title for track 19 is "Secret of the Waterfall".

Reviewer: Spaceseed - - July 24, 2011
Subject: I Love this!!!!

I grew up in Louisville and saw this band many times its the reason I play music watching these guys and bluegrass Saturday Night was another cool Louisville band from the 70's . My granpa used to talk with Lonnie at the Bluegrass Fiddlers Convention in Leitchfield Kentucky.Awesome!!

Reviewer: YonderMountainStringFan - - October 29, 2010
Subject: This bluegrass lover is thankful!

What a truly amazing recording. When I stumbled upon this one, my excitement was uncontrollable. After downloading it, I can sincerely say that my expectations were surpassed.

Thank you to everyone that made this one possible (band, Mr. Barry, and other producers).

Great quality, soulful singing, impressive playing, and some of my favorite traditional bluegrass tunes.

Reviewer: garthus - - June 9, 2010
Subject: Great music

We need more stuff like this up on the Archive, Good music, good arrangements and good production.

Thank you

Gerry

Reviewer: dogs2bird1 - - August 27, 2009
Subject: LOVE THIS BAND

I am a big fan of the band,especially back in the early 1970's. I actually got to see them perform with my dad when I was about 7 as I grew up in Louisville. The name of the song that first appears in this concert is called "LOOK AWAY BEYOND THE SUNSET" as it was released by The Bluegrass Alliance on the album "TALL GRASS" in 1973

Reviewer: ChefJLo - - February 16, 2009
Subject: Great!

Thank you Monte. Has this been in your closet for 33 years? Nice to hear some old stuff.

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